DO POOR AND STRANGER HAVE THE RIGHT TO OUR SHARE?

 

 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19: 10.

It was a great, yet simple, economic plan, better than our most efficient community system today. It made the recipients of the charity share in the labor of gathering of the blessing. This plan for a conscious and studied method of giving in a way so as not to wound the sense of dignity in human life, even among the poor, is an excellent example.

This command of God reveals His concerns on all classes of people. God reveals His cares not only to His chosen people but also to the alien or outside of the commonwealth of Israel’s nation. Beside that, He taught His people to extend their blessing and care to other race or alien outside their family or tribe. God of Old Testament is generous and compassionate. He is God who provides the needs of both believers and non believers. He is not a respecter of person. He is a loving God who bade His men to leave for the poor and strangers which man of wealth today doesn’t do. His Kingdom is a kingdom of generosity! That is why, Ruth, the Moabites woman, got her living from the picking of the remains from the farm of a rich man, named Boaz (Ruth 2; 3). 

In fact, in the Introduction of the chapter (verse 1), God is revealing Himself as holy; therefore, his people must be holy. This kind of action or deed is a holy act that reflects His holiness. God wanted His chosen people to be holy as He is by doing the same thing, to be like God in attitude toward others. God wanted to create a heavenly like community in this earth that reflects the community of God in heaven.

I think this way of life is relevance in our time. A man who professed of having a caring God has to share also his blessings to the poor and even to the strangers. The Christians are known of having a Gracious and loving God. They have to reflect the image of their God in their lives. Generosity and Graciousness are marks of Christianity. Be holy for God is holy. This happens only when God abides in the heart through having Christ.